Abstract:

Abstract Modern life and developing technology are about to make a new concept/phenomenon -the metaverse- which is the product of the imagination of futuristic novels, a new reality of our lives. It is foreseen that this and similar technological platforms and applications will become a part of our daily life in the future. The main purpose of this study is to determine the evaluations of the instructors in the field of tourism regarding the concept of metaverse. In this context, a semi-structured interview form is administered to the lecturers working in the tourism-related departments of different universities in Turkey. Data are collected from a total of 82 lecturers working in tourism-related departments of different universities. Data are analyzed by the MAXQDA program. According to the results of the analysis, the instructors working in the field of tourism highlighted the concepts of virtual universe, virtual reality, augmented reality and virtual environment related to the concept of metaverse. However, according to the instructors, the metaverse; they stated that it can offer opportunities such as marketing effectiveness, economic convenience, and ease of promotion to tourists, and that it can create threats such as employment problem, decrease in tourism revenues, inability of businesses to keep up with the times and security gap.

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